


Day Three: Restless

by mathgeek27



Series: Drabble a Day Challenge [3]
Category: drabble a day challenge - Fandom
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 16:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3985078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathgeek27/pseuds/mathgeek27





	Day Three: Restless

It was cold, and it was dark, and Mara wasn’t particularly enjoying either aspect of her walk. Why she had agreed to work late was beyond her. It was a decision that Morning Mara had made without any consideration or respect for how Evening Mara might feel. She sighed. It seemed she was stuck in a tug of war between the two; Morning Mara said yes to pleading coworkers while Evening Mara said yes to just one more chapter. Between the two, she barely got any sleep.

...Which she could definitely feel. She stumbled, feet too lethargic to properly lift off the cracked and uneven sidewalk. The newly leafed trees didn’t help, obscuring any possible ray of brightness from the intermittent street lamps.  
For all her internal grumbling, Mara really did like the walk home, especially the bit that went through the wooded park. It was peaceful in the way that only living spaces could be: life, being everywhere, slowed down. The leaves were restless, stirring in the bone cold wind. Mara listened with vague interest, also focusing on the way the damp earth smelled, pricking in her nose.  
She was so taken with the surrounding night that she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until they were to close to feasibly miss. Every measure of her self control was spent on not whipping around to see who it was- who else might possible be walking in the chill, shadowed park?- so when the stranger tapped her shoulder, she couldn’t contain her ragged gasp of fear.  
At once, Mara realised that the stranger was in fact not a stranger at all, but her coworker Eden. Unfortunately for both of them, Mara’s fist didn’t realise this fact until after it had collided solidly with Eden’s nose.  
“Ah, great buggering shit, Eden, I’m so sorry!”  
“Oh, erm, hey Mara, nice to see you too.”  
“Damn, damn, damn, are you okay?”  
“Yeah. Wow. Just, uh, surprised. Where did you learn to punch like that?”  
“I’m so sorry, really, I thought you were a creeping old man who had come to-”  
“Really, Mara, it’s fine. I should have announced myself. Well beyond punching range.”  
Mara unscrewed her face from its grimace and peeked at Eden. Beside the crooked shape of her coworker’s nose, Eden really did look fine. Mara let out her breath. They smiled at each other, Mara rather sheepishly, both slightly dazed, until a gust of wind blew past, disrupting their quiet moment.  
“Well, anyway, I snuck up on you because you left this on your desk.”  
Eden hander her a wrapped gift, the very one that Mara had been trying so very hard not to forget when she left work earlier that evening. Their ungloved hands connected under the package, and Mara noticed that Eden’s hands were rather soft.

That night, gift safely delivered to her mother, Mara laid in bed, smiling. Eden had responded to her suggestion of coffee- to help mend Eden’s nose, of course- just slightly too quickly. Almost enthusiastically, one might say (especially one who had been gazing at Eden for the better part of a year), and that filled Mara with a restless kind of hope.


End file.
